Five Times John Made A Mistake
by chaletian
Summary: And one time he didn't. The trials and tribulations of John Winchester's attempts at fatherhood. Features Winchester brothers in various stages of development.


**Five Times John Made A Mistake… And One Time He Didn't**

**by Liss Webster**

**[1]**

John Winchester wasn't entirely sure he was cut out for this fathering business. He wasn't a kid guy. He knew kid guys – they could do magic tricks, and raced toy cars around on the floor for hours without feeling like their backs had been kicked by mules, and knew instinctively what crayoned scrawls were supposed to represent. That wasn't him: never had been, never would. He loved his son, no question, but he sure wasn't one of those guys who breezed through fatherhood.

Those guys, John thought grimly, picking up Dean and holding him gingerly over the changing mat, just _knew_ how to put a diaper on. Sure, Mary had shown him (three times) how to do it, but the baby was tiny, and the muslin diaper was at least the size of Kansas, and all held together with a single safety pin: that just wasn't right. John had done his best, but Dean's little face was scrunched in reddened disapproval, and his lower body looked like an Egyptian mummy gone wrong. As Dean dangled there, the entire muslin edifice slipped gradually down until it was suspended from his feet. John's lips tightened. This was going to take a whole lotta practice.

He heard Mary enter the nursery behind him, felt her hand smoothing across his back.

"I suck at this," he said gruffly, but she just laughed, and rescued Dean, dangling diaper and all.

"Nobody does it straight off," she said, rearranging the muslin folds so that they actually looked like they might do their job, as John watched closely, determined to figure out the mystery. "Parenting's all about making mistakes." He put his arm around her, and poked Dean in belly, then caught one tiny waving fist.

"Mistakes I can do," John said, and grinned at his family.

**[2]**

The morning after the shtriga had nearly killed Sammy, John got up, showered and dressed. In the kitchen-cum-living-room, he found Dean and Sammy watching morning cartoons, the volume turned down low. He ruffled Sammy's hair as he passed; ignored Dean, still angry that his elder son had left the younger to fend for himself. He didn't miss Dean's look, hurt and shame and guilt, but it was good for the boy. Meant he would learn from his mistakes, learn not to disobey orders.

Riding high on moral righteousness, John moved towards the kitchen end of the room, and put the kettle on for his morning coffee. Breakfast, now… toast, cereal. Maybe some eggs. He opened a cupboard, and was irritated to notice that there was nothing in it. He slammed it shut; opened another. That was empty, too, except for the tin of coffee and a tube of… what was that? Garlic puree? Who the hell bought garlic puree?

"Are you makin' breakfast, Daddy?" Sam asked from his chair, finally distracted from Thundercats by John's banging. "Dean said we had to wait for you." John started to answer, pissed off at Dean again, because he was nine years old and should be able to cope with making breakfast for Sam and himself. Dean had scrambled to his feet, large eyes worried and apologetic, and John was ready to lay into him when suddenly his head swung round to the empty cupboards, and he did the math on how long he had been out hunting that damned shtriga.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Dean said, hurriedly, his words tripping over themselves. "I tried to make everything last, honest, but…" he tailed off, his gaze dropping, but John could fill in the blanks. But you didn't come back. Fuck. What the hell kind of father was he, leaving his two young kids by themselves for days, not making sure they had enough food to last, not making sure they were protected, because, Christ, Dean was nine. Nine fucking years old. It wasn't his job to protect Sammy, it was John's, and look how miserably he had failed there.

He rested a hand on Dean's shoulder, and squeezed lightly, rubbing his thumb along his son's fragile collar bone.

"It's fine, Dean," he said, softly this time. "Let's go get pancakes."

Sammy squealed and bounced in the background, but John focused on Dean's bent head, and wondered what Mary would say if she could see the mistakes he made with his sons. One thing was for certain: he was never leaving his kids alone like this again. Hunting was important, but the boys were his family.

**[3]**

So, that had been a disaster. The Impala was parked at the side of the highway. Sam was somewhere in the rough grass, puking his guts out. Dean was laughing to himself, drunker'n any seventeen year old had a right to be. The car was full of their possessions, packed higgledy-piggledy into the trunk and back seat.

They'd been stressed after a hunt, and John had said they could go to the fair, all of them, together. They'd have a nice time. It would be a good memory. So he'd been lax, let them do what they wanted.

No fucking way he was ever doing that again. Sammy'd eaten so much sugar he was probably going to start diabetes on the back of it. Dean'd drunk too much, then come across a girl from school, and John didn't even want to know what the pair of 'em had been up to in the Tunnel of Love, but the girl's daddy sure hadn't been happy when he'd seen the coming out the other end of the ride. Oh, and of course he was the town's sheriff. Like the night could've ended any other way.

Ridden out of town because your son was a teenage lothario. Fucking embarrassing. In the dark, Sam whimpered and Dean suddenly made for the outdoors as well, joining his younger brother. John had no sympathy for either of them.

This was one mistake he'd never make again.

**[4]**

"If you leave now, don't think you're coming back."

The words, harsh and angry and loud, echoed through John's head, endless reverberations that showed no signs of diminishing, despite the considerable quantity of whisky he had drunk. What the fuck, John? his inner voice said, the inner voice that had always sounded remarkably like Mary. Just what do you think you were doing?

"Protectin' him," mumbled John in reply, but he knew it was a weak answer. Knew that whatever objections he had to Sam going off to college, however much Sam had been pissing him off for the last, oh, five years with his snotty attitude and barely concealed rebellion, he shouldn't have said those words. And now Sam was gone, gone without a backward glance, his back ramrod-straight and filled with contempt. John wasn't sure, at this stage of his inebriation, quite how Sam managed to get his back to look contemptuous, but if anyone could manage it, it was his kid Sammy.

Sammy had left, and after that first blank moment of shock, when the impact of John's words had hit him, Dean had rushed out after him, returning an hour later by himself, ignoring John completely. Not even looked at him, and that hurt, because John thought Dean understood – no, _needed_ Dean to understand. He got clumsily to his feet, and headed towards the room the boys had shared, pushing open the door quietly. Dean lay in bed, asleep, one arm outflung, the other under his pillow.

John knelt down beside his son, and raised a hand that only shook slightly, passing it lightly over Dean's hair, brushing the backs of his fingers against one freckled cheek. He glanced across to the empty bed, and remembered the days when his two boys would sleep together, Dean wrapped round Sammy, never letting each other go.

"Sammy'll come back," he said softly, and leant forward to kiss the top of Dean's head. Mistakes could always be fixed. He had to believe that.

**[5]**

John walked slowly into the Roadhouse, and dumped his backpack onto a wooden stool, scratching exhaustedly at his mud-spattered jaw.

"John Winchester. God _damn_, you look like crap," observed one of the men propping up the bar, who suddenly paid a good deal of attention to his drink as John glared at him with the crazy rage of an injured bear.

"Fucking wendigos," he announced to no-one in particular, sliding onto a bar stool and nodding at the woman behind the bar. "Ellen."

"John," she returned laconically, automatically reaching for the bottle of Jack and pouring a glass, sliding along to rest by John's hand. "Joshua's been calling for you. Says he couldn't get you on your cell."

"No signal," replied John briefly, knocking back the drink in one, and pushing forward the glass for another. Ellen obliged, but hovered.

"Sounded urgent. He'd appreciate a call." John shrugged, but stood up and ambled towards the phone, dropping a quarter into the machine and dialing the number from memory. The conversation over, he returned to the bar, and sat down heavily, his head dropping into his hands, shoulders tense.

"Everything OK?" asked Ellen, knowing from Joshua's earlier calls, increasingly urgent, that something was definitely not OK. John lifted his head, but said nothing.

Two hours later, John was still at the Roadhouse, sitting at the bar, staring at the phone. All he needed to do was pick up the phone, talk to his sons. Reassure them. Reassure _himself_. Dean was going to be OK, Joshua had made sure he knew that. But that didn't alter the fact that Dean had been dying. And John hadn't known; hadn't been there. He'd finally got a signal on his cell, had listened to the messages Sam had left.

But John had made so many mistakes with his boys, and he wasn't sure that he was brave enough to acknowledge them. So he didn't call. One more mistake.

**[1]**

Lying in that hospital bed, gradually coming to terms with the part where he wasn't dead, John had one of those blinding realizations where a million things you have learnt and read and discovered suddenly click into place. It was a realization so stunning in its simplicity that he could barely believe it was true. He approached the idea cautiously, tentatively. He came up with a few objections to the idea, and found that they were easily vanquished. John lay in his hospital bed, and a smile, half triumphant, half disbelieving, spread across his face.

He could summon the demon. Not just any demon. _The_ Demon.

They still had the Colt. He could summon that son of a bitch, and kill it before it knew what was happening. Perhaps that wasn't fair play; but fuck fair. He was going to kill the bastard. Shoot it and watch its eyes die, watch its spirit evaporate.

John was preparing a mental list of things he would need, when a doctor came in. His face was harried and sober, his hair all kinds of crazy.

"Mr McGillicuddy, I'm Dr Mason. I've been looking after your son, Dean." He talked for quite a long time after that, but barely one word in three penetrated John's shock. Dean – his boy Dean – who even to John had seemed somehow indestructible, because what had ever managed to destroy him? – was hurt. Hurt bad. On the inside and the outside and everywhere in between. Dean was going to die.

The doctor talked on, and then left, and John was alone again. A fresh hate for the Demon blossomed in his chest as he remembered what he had done to his son's body, and the urge to kill it, to slaughter it, to _obliterate_ it turned his vision red and his hands into fists.

But Sam was right. Some things were more important. So he would summon the Demon, and he would take the Colt, but he wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that killing the Demon was more important than saving his son.

THE END


End file.
